


where we go after the fall

by stepantrofimovic



Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Ivan Karamazov's dilemma, Multi, fairly obvious Dostoyevsky references, self-indulgent angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 13:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13167717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic
Summary: From the moment he sees Anakin in the Temple recordings, Obi-Wan Kenobi never stops.





	where we go after the fall

From the moment he sees Anakin in the Temple recordings, Obi-Wan Kenobi never stops.

There’s always a next step, something that needs to be done. Find Anakin, first. He has no qualms using Padmé for that. Years later, he will think back to that moment and marvel at what he’d become, in such a short time. Then, again, maybe the idea that all this happened in a short time has been their worst mistake.

Hide. Get to Mustafar. Close his mind to the unbearableness that is Padmé’s grief mingled with hope while he’s stowing away in her ship.

When Anakin accuses Padmé of having loved him, Obi-Wan wants to laugh. _As if_ , he thinks. As if he hadn’t stopped allowing himself what he wanted, so many years ago on Naboo, on the day he killed another Sith. As if he were about to start again with Padmé Naberrie and Anakin Skywalker.

As if his life hadn’t been in ruins long before today.

There’s no time for that, of course. Fight Anakin. Stop him. _(Kill him.)_ Leave. _(Leave him to die.)_

He’s not lying when he screams at Anakin that he was his brother. He’s also not telling the whole truth. But he needs the feeling of righteousness that comes through the Force when he says that, he needs to believe it, and so he does.

There is a Dark Side and a Light Side, there is a prophecy and a destiny, and Obi-Wan’s destiny is to be in the Light.

Finding Padmé again, knowing that she’s dying, is the first real blow, the first moment when he loses that sense of clarity. When he starts doubting that he’s, they’re, on the right side, the Light side, at all.

Get Padmé medical help. Ensure that even if she dies ( _oh gods, oh gods, she dies_ ), the twins live. That she names them. Leia. Luke. Keep them safe. Bail and Breha Organa have always wanted a child. Owen and Beru Lars didn’t want any of this, didn’t want the likes of him in their house ever again, but this is Anakin’s son, Shmi’s grandson, and they will love him, even if they won’t love what he is.

Obi-Wan knows he’s doing the right thing. In the Force, there is nothing but the calm and serenity that comes with knowing that.

_(And the memory of ten thousand Jedi dying, and the loss, Aayla Plo Stass Jocasta Luminara Bant and so many others, so many that he still can’t see who lives and who died, but he isn’t listening to that, not yet. Things still need to be done. And through everything, the Light is still there.)_

This is not what Yoda sees, when Obi-Wan finally meets him again, on Alderaan. The ancient Master takes a long look at him, his drooping ears and limp hands barely holding onto his gimer stick broadcasting his state better than anything else.

‘Much rage I sense in you, my friend, and pain.’

‘I haven’t Fallen yet,’ Obi-Wan retorts. He bites his lips before he can say, _I’m not the one who Fell_.

He’s rewarded with one of Yoda’s expressive hums. ‘Meditate you should, Master Kenobi.’ If he doesn’t flinch at the title, it’s because he has still things left to do. Leia is safe, but Luke is not, and the journey to Tatooine is long. ‘When you do, the path you might see.’

Obi-Wan smiles and nods, knowing well that there is no path other than the one he already saw for himself. The Force is speaking loud and clear, and he needs to move on.

Get to Tatooine. Talk to Owen and Beru. Buy a farm, far out, overlooking the Jundland Wastes. Make sure it’s in working condition. Harvest water, precious water. Hide. Wait.

And then, suddenly, there is no next step. He’s done all he had to. He has time.

He kneels on the warm, dry floor. Everything on Tatooine is warm and dry. He’ll just have to get used to it.

Anything but a light trance is impossible to reach, so that has to be enough. Yoda was right on one point – he hasn’t meditated in far too long. He opens his mind, expecting it to settle in the calming embrace of the Force.

Instead, he finds memories.

The dry, wind-swept heat of Tatooine becomes the roiling atmosphere on Mustafar. There is Anakin again, or the thing that Anakin has become. There’s pain, and betrayal, and the rage Obi-Wan had refused to feel as he stood on the bank near the flow of lava.

He lets it go, feeling it flow away into the Force. Lets go of Padmé’s face as she lay dying, of the realisation that but for two tiny beings who will never remember or recognise him, he has no family left in the Galaxy.

He lets go of Order 66, of the screams of thousands of Jedi _(dying)_ becoming one with the Force. Years later, he will feel something like it again, as a whole planet drops out of existence.

The next thing he remembers are the younglings in the crèche.

Not their corpses, the smell and the memory of their fear as he first walked into the room. He remembers them alive in the Temple security holos, sees the expressions on their faces when Anakin had come to pay them a visit.

The younglings had seen their favourite Knight, and they had been happy. Some had still been when they died, having been given no time to process what was happening and turn joy into panic.

He jolts out of his meditation, all thoughts of giving this up consumed in a flash by the realisation that there is nothing. No Dark or Light Side, no Living or Unifying Force. Nothing that can account for the faces of those children as they died, let something like that happen, and still make sense.

Even if there is, Obi-Wan doesn’t want to be a part of it.

He stays there, kneeling on that dusty floor in the Tatooine heat, and wishes desperately that he weren’t so alone. Wishes for Bail, Yoda, for the Master he has been missing for almost two decades now.

There’s no one, of course. No one and nothing but desert sand and a child in a moisture farm kliks away, a child to whom Obi-Wan will one day owe answers he doesn’t have. Not anymore.

Obi-Wan Kenobi does not Fall, but on that day, he is lost.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [I am on Tumblr](http://stepantrofimovic.tumblr.com/), reading too much Prequels fanfiction and waiting for the Kenobi movie to break my heart, among other things.


End file.
